Factors Affecting the Loyal Use of Knowledge Management Systems

This paper investigates the factors affecting the Loyal Use of a Knowledge Management System (KMS). Unlike most other types of information systems, the value from using a KMS is temporally disassociated from the instance of use. We developed a model of the factors affecting the Loyal Use of a KMS and used data gathered from 1013 users of a well-established codification-based KMS in a multinational pharmaceutical firm to test the model using LISREL. Perceived Usefulness was found to be the strongest factor influencing Loyal Use. Extrinsic Motivation and perceived Voluntariness were also important but perceived ease of use played only a minor role. The quality of the system and quality of the knowledge were found to be key drivers of Perceived Usefulness.